This call aims to enhance the flexibility of energy-intensive industrial processes to enable efficient and continuous operation under variable renewable energy supply conditions. Projects should focus on the redesign and adaptation of existing production systems to allow rapid load and throughput changes while maintaining high energy and material efficiency. Proposals must demonstrate improved process performance at pilot scale, include a business case and exploitation plan, and assess both environmental and socio-economic impacts. The initiative supports the EU’s 2040 climate targets and contributes to the development of a competitive European decarbonisation technology value chain.

Proposals under this topic should address all of the following:

• Address the redesign and modification of existing processes, including, as relevant, modifications of process steps or equipment and smart combinations of renewable energy sources, thereby improving the overall operation flexibility of the process and resulting in continuous efficient operation;
• Propose redesign and modification of plants and processes to increase their flexibility response rate (e.g., faster ramp up or ramp down) while maintaining a high energy- and resource efficiency;
• Demonstrate and evaluate material and energy efficiency gains from a holistic view of the processing plants and the energy systems as well as economic benefits by exploiting the price variations on the energy markets;
• Showcase improved performance, scalability and cost efficiency of the proposed solution through at least one realistic use case at pilot scale;
• Define necessary skills of the proposed solution, to enable their industrial implementation.

Digital tools and advanced control to support the operation and the flexibility of the processes can be elements of a solution.